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From the Solicitors Journal 06/08/13: Nearly half of law students are not confident about getting a training contract after university, a survey has found. Forty-seven per cent said they were considering other careers as a backup despite almost half claiming they began planning for a legal career before university, according to the survey carried out by careers website Target Jobs.Actually, that seems quite high given the number of training contracts available out there. It shows that a good proportion of law students are reasonably optimistic they’ll secure a career as a solicitor despite all the doom and gloom around the current state of legal job market. Maybe it also reflects the fact there are other ways to qualify as a solicitor for those so inclined to try. Perhaps students are waking up to this a little more now. For several years, there have been calls for the size of intakes into law schools to be more closely aligned with the number of vacancies for legal jobs out there.…

Guest PostProfessionals at solicitors like Beecham Peacock would probably tend to agree that lawyers are a good-looking lot, and if you look to the world of TV and film for guidance, you’d certainly believe that all solicitors were sexy men and women with a glamorous lifestyle and a murder case always on the go. Here we’ve compiled a list of the top ten sexiest on-screen lawyers for your viewing pleasure. We couldn’t possibly put them in any particular order. Phil Morris, SeinfeldHe might not look his best when playing attorney Jackie Chiles in Seinfeld, what with the big glasses and moustache, but Phil Morris is undeniably one of TV’s sexiest lawyers when you look beneath the make-up. Calista Flockhart, Ally McBealAlly McBeal is a legal comedy-drama which focused on the work as well as the romantic life of its protagonist – a young Boston lawyer of the same name. She was played by American beauty Calista Flockhart, who has been married to Harrison Ford since 2010. Tom Cruise, A F…

Guest PostFew people marry without the hope or expectation that the union will last forever, but for many couples, there comes a time when continuing in an unhappy marriage is no longer and option and thoughts turn to divorce. To obtain a divorce under English law, certain requirements must be met. The first is that the marriage must have broken down to the extent that there is no possible chance of a reconciliation. The other requirements depend on which one of the five specific grounds allowed for divorce is being sought. Many people approach their divorce lawyer with the mistaken belief that it is possible to get a divorce by citing irreconcilable differences, but this cannot be used under UK law. The closest UK equivalent is unreasonable behaviour. To use this as grounds of divorce you need to show that the other party has behaved in a way that is so unreasonable that you can no longer live with him or her. While you may be concerned about whether you will be able to provide suffi…

Seeking legal redress for a personal injury you have suffered can be a traumatic experience. Choosing the right firm to handle your case can go a long way to ensure the process goes as smoothly as possible. Although many personal injury lawyers specialise in a particular area such as road traffic incidents, occupational or medical negligence etc. it is common for a wide variety of personal injury areas to be collectively handled by a single firm – certainly in the case of the larger, more renowned ones. A short while researching your options on the internet would likely prove to be time well spent. The Law Society maintains a database with a helpful search tool to aid you in finding a suitable lawyer. You can narrow your search by geographical area which can make it easy, for example, to search for personal injury solicitors in Milton Keynes. You may also want to consider checking whether a personal injury lawyer you intend to instruct is accredited by a recognised body such as API…

Guest PostIt is recommended that everyone have a will drawn up to govern their assets in the event of their death. Whilst few people want to consider their own mortality, a will is an important tool used to protect grieving family members from having to manage the complex legal issues surrounding your estate after you have passed away. Although wills can be made independently, the greatest security is offered through making a will with an experienced solicitor. Ask family and friends for firms they have previously used, or look to companies with solid local representation such as Breens Solicitors. When people die without a will, they are said to have died ‘intestate’ and as such, a wide range of very strict rules are applied to their assets. The first of these is the appointment of an executor to the estate, who oversees the distribution of wealth. During the process of writing a will, parties are able to choose your own executor. If someone is to die intestate, they no longer have…

Guest PostFor many years, successive governments have been claiming that employers are in the grip of health and safety rules and regulations amidst rising compensation claims. Additional fears have been of a rising health and safety culture, and an increasing litigation culture. Indeed, last year David Cameron was prompted to highlight the fact that “it is simply much too easy for no-win-no-fee lawyers to encourage trivial claims against businesses, which end up settling out of court because it is too expensive to fight the case,” alongside a statement that Britain’s compensation culture was “spiralling out of control.” A recent Trades Union Congress (TUC) commissioned report paints a different picture, however. According to the report, the number of people actually receiving compensation for workplace injuries or related actually fell from 219,183 in 2000/01 to 87,655 in 2011/12. Furthermore, the report, published in health and safety journal Hazard, highlights a more serious matt…

From the BBC 08/08/13: The company behind Marmite has donated £18,000 to the RSPCA after some viewers said its latest advert trivialised the work of animal welfare agencies. "Marmite have put their money where their mouth is," said Matt Cull, a fundraiser for the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. The TV advert, in which a spoof rescue team "saves" neglected jars of Marmite, has now prompted around 400 complaints.You can’t account for the crazy sensibilities of the viewing public. There are a lot of over-sensitive people out there just itching to make a complaint about the first thing that pops into their tiny minds. "Marmite have offered us £18,000, which is how much it costs to run our inspectorate service for one day," continued Mr Cull. "This will make a massive difference to the animals and we are very grateful for their generosity."Granted, the ad is slightly off the wall (aren’t the best ones always like that?) but a…

Guest PostRecent figures show that dangerous workplace occurrences remain prevalent, implying that employers could do more to protect workers from occupational diseases.Roberts Jackson solicitors handle claims on behalf of employees suffering from occupational diseases on a daily basis. Based on the cases our legal team frequently have to handle, we firmly believe that many employers could be doing more to protect the health and safety of their staff members. Statistics from the Health and Safety Executive, a national watchdog for work-related health, safety and illness confirm our concerns.Annual figures from HSE show that 452,000 new work-related illness and occupational disease cases were started in 2011/2012. While these statistics are lower than previous years, it suggests that there are still a staggeringly high number of people being diagnosed with occupational illnesses and diseases.New cases from past exposureWork-related illnesses and diseases such as asthma, asbestosis and …

…says some survey or another.From Crave 08/08/13:Mobile Phone Checker's survey asked around 1,000 parents about the mobile habits of their children, discovering that most parents issue mobile phones to their offspring for safety reasons. Kids typically get their first phone at the age of 7.At the age of WHAT?!?Telecoms watchdog Ofcom recently found in a wider survey that anklebiters tend to get their first phone at around 10 years of age. Upon starting secondary school, they're likely to switch to a smart phone, possibly because of social pressure from classmates. According to this latest survey, a decade ago younglings were likely to have got a phone at the age of 13 -- but in 2003 that would have been an old-school brick of a mobile "for emergencies", long before phones became more about apps, games, surfing and sending pictures of your unmentionables to random strangers.While on a train to London the other day, I had the displeasure of being seated next to some …

I published a couple of posts on the Charlotte Dymond murder a few years ago (here and here) and in that time I have developed quite an interest in the story. I’m rather ashamed to admit that I hadn’t read ‘The Charlotte Dymond Murder’ by Pat Munn previously, but now I’ve finally gotten round to it, I wanted to share some of my immediate thoughts. The book was published in 1978, after Munn’s interest was piqued by a surprise telephone call from an author friend in 1973, asking if she knew anything about the story. Pat soon found herself gripped by the case and began what can only be described as a tireless crusade to uncover what she felt to be a gross miscarriage of justice. Before going any further, it’s worth saying that the book is a testament to Munn’s years of painstaking and meticulous research. Pat, who died in 2009, was a well-respected local historian, Cornish Bard and academic and nobody can possibly find fault with the lengths she went to in researching the case. Her eff…

Ok, I grant you the idea of the average partner in a law firm using a treadmill desk on a daily basis is a little far fetched. But the health benefits for people who usually lead such a sedentary and high stress lifestyle must not be overlooked. Those extravagant client lunches have quite an effect on a lawyer’s waistline and billing more hours doesn’t necessarily burn more calories. Besides, walking for a while at your desk has got to be a lot more efficient at burning fat compared to stressing over an ethical dilemma or having an anxiety attack because of an undertaking the firm has just given.From Roll on Friday 06/08/13:A US firm is tackling the threat of morbid obesity that comes from slouching in front of a computer all day or being American by gi…

From Windows IT Pro (written by Paul Thurrott) 01/08/13: Microsoft confirmed on Wednesday that it will not fight a July ruling by the England and Wales High Court in which it was found to have infringed on British Sky Broadcasting (BSkyB) trademarks for the term “Sky.” As a result, Microsoft has agreed to rebrand its SkyDrive cloud storage service with a new, as yet-unknown name.Under the settlement, Microsoft can continue to use the SkyDrive name for a reasonable period of time while it implements a new brand. BSkyB is a UK-based satellite broadcaster, Internet provider and telephone services firm. It does not make or sell any cloud-based storage services, nor is it clear how the firm could have obtained multiple trademarks for a term as general as “sky.”Oh, Paul. Where do we begin? Perhaps it would be helpful to remind ourselves of the basic criteria a mark must meet to be capable of being registered as a trademark under English law. Providing the mark meets the basic requireme…

Michael is a practising lawyer and accomplished cynic from the UK. He’s been blogging since his student days and can’t quite bring himself to hang up his blogging gloves just yet (they’re fingerless gloves, obviously).
He loves fussing over trivialities, seeking comfort from repetitive activities, idly reminiscing and moaning about things.